Gachapin and Mukku: Bandai uses ugly monsters to design netbook

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Bandai in Japan announced a very special kind of netbook, the Gachapin and Mukku ultramobile PC [JP]. Gachapin is the green monster (a dinosaur, actually) and huge on Japanese kids TV, just like his sidekick Mukku, a red Yeti.

The netbook, which reminds me a little of the OLPC, is Japan-only, unfortunately. It’s equipped with an N270 Intel Atom processor (1.60 Ghz), a 120GB HDD, Wifi, a webcam, a One-Seg digital TV tuner with an antenna, a webcam and a 8.9 TFT screen with 1,024×600 resolution.

Bandai uses voice samples from the show, which are supposed to help kids get used to the PC. For example, users will be greeted by Gachapin’s voice after booting with him saying: “Goood morning! Goooood morning! Let’s try to work hard today!”.

Bandai will start selling the netbooks (in Gachapin-green only) in March for $880.